


Under Hill

by cordelia_gray



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Curtain Fic, M/M, Season/Series 08, Spring Fling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordelia_gray/pseuds/cordelia_gray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Winchester's lives are only a little bit like a Disney cartoon, and it takes Dean a long time to figure things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Hill

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the spnspringfling exchange on LJ, for the lovely amber1960. Her prompt was "In a bluebell wood." It came out a little more sentimental than I intended :) 
> 
> Original here: http://spnspringfling.livejournal.com/59684.html. I corrected a couple of typos (feel free to point out any I missed!) but otherwise it's pretty much the same.

Dean spends the rest of that year waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There's a terrifying time, after that church, where Sam is really, really sick. Fever, convulsions, hallucinations, the whole bit. Dean has to take him to the hospital, where they seem to think he's been poisoned. They pump his stomach and dose him with electrolytes and fuck knows what else, and Dean hovers, and paces, and punches the wall in the crappy motel. And after the convulsions there's a coma, for a long time. Years. Lifetimes. Three weeks.

But Sam gets better, because in spite of everything the universe doesn't completely hate Dean. Or because Sam is a stubborn SOB, and he's just not that easy to kill.

Kevin is incandescent with rage when Dean tells him they didn't finish the trials, but after a while he comes and sits with Dean in the hospital, watches Sam breathe. He never quite forgives them, but he understands.

It helps that Crowley lied about killing Linda, which he spills in a rush of glib self-pity, along with a whole lot of other crap Dean _really_ didn't want to know. Almost-human Crowley is almost worse than demon-Crowley. At least he was just a dick, you knew where you stood. Dean has no time for this self-pity crap. Fortunately, he's locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane, for kidnapping Mrs. Tran amongst other things.

When Sam wakes up, Dean takes him home (home!). It's weird, ending up back in Kansas again, after everything, but it's pretty easy to avoid the parts he doesn't want to think about. Sam tells him this is the geographic center of the continental US, but it doesn't feel like the middle of anything, really. It feels like a backwater, a place time forgot, and Dean's fine with that. He has glimpses, sometimes, imagining himself and Sam as old men, gray and stooped, shuffling though these rooms, bickering about the TV and whose turn it is to do the dishes or check the saltlines.

It's dumb, though. These are stupid fantasies to have. He's not going to get old, and Sam will, but not here. Not with him. Sam will get better, put his weight back on, lose the haunted look which still shadows his eyes. Sam will find someone, and be happy, and normal or whatever. It's what's supposed to happen.

Sam, as usual, is not doing what he's supposed to. Sam is settling in. It's weird.

It takes a long time for Sam to recover physically, but he works at it with the single-minded intensity that only Sam can bring to bear, and gradually gets stronger, gets back to his workout routines. Jogging and yoga and weights and sparring, rebuilding that action-hero physique. Dean sucks in his gut, and takes to joining Sam in the weightroom. 

They find another cave, a part of the bunker where it looks like the Men of Letters were expanding, but never got to finish before Abaddon showed up. (Abbadon: there's another shoe Dean's waiting for.) They look around the big, empty, rough-hewn space. "Garage, Sammy," Dean says, and Sam grins.

They level the floor and pour concrete. It takes them a long time, Sam's still not at 100%, and there's no rush. Sam finds blueprints and plans in the archives, and Dean is able to figure out enough of it to rig a garage door, camouflaged by trees and rocks. Charlie helps them with the electronics of the remote. Dean absolutely does not spend a day driving in and out of the concealed entrance.

Sam surprises him one day by saying it's time for a road trip. "Found us a hunt?" Dean asks, puzzled. Sam just tells him to shut up and drive. Turns out their destination is Singer Salvage, or what's left of it, the prairie gradually encroaching on the ruins of the house. But the rest of it didn't burn: Bobby's mechanic shop is intact, tools and car lift and Impala parts and all.

Bobby left it to them. Dean's tried to forget all about it, but Sam says, "He'd have wanted you to use this stuff, Dean. Don't just let it all rust." So they take it, loading the tools and equipment on to an old flatbed truck in the back.

Dean installs the car lift, and gets to work on a thorough overhaul of the Impala, but he's thinking, _any day now._ This has got to be it, Sam's gone to a lot of trouble to get him a hobby, something to do when he goes, which. It's nice, it makes Dean feel a little warm inside every time he thinks of it. But it's got to be the end of the line, right?

Sam still shows no sign of leaving, though. He starts working his way through the Batcave library in earnest, cataloging and making notes. He finds a local farmer's market, gets a library card. Because there aren't enough books in the bunker already, apparently.

It's been almost a year, and Dean's really starting to lose it. It's almost May, almost Sam's birthday, and Sam - Sam seems _happy._ He's making plans about the library, re-organising it and getting it digitized or whatever. He's spending a lot of time in town, doing who-knows-what, but he's always home for dinner, he says nice things about Dean's cooking, he smiles a lot. And Dean doesn't know when the fuck he became Betty Fucking Crocker, and he doesn't know when he started to _hope,_ but it's doing his head in. He watches Sam when he thinks Sam isn't looking, memorizing, etching those smiles into his mind so he'll have them. He'll have something to keep, when. Because it's got to be soon, he overheard Sam talking to Charlie about college courses, and Dean can feel doom hanging over him.

Which is why he fucks it up, of course. Dean's a "rip off the bandaid" kind of guy: he can take the hits, it's the anticipation that kills him. So when Sam comes out to visit him in the garage where he's working on a 1956 Cadillac, bringing him a hot coffee and a smile, on his way out for his run, and says, "So I thought maybe we could think about getting a dog," Dean says, "Why? So you can leave it, like the other one?"

Sam's face just crumples, then, for a split second of total hurt, before he sets his chin - because Sam knows how to take a hit too, don't forget that - and turns to leave without another word.

"Shit!" says Dean to the engine block, and scrambles out from under. He feels a vicious momentary satisfaction that whatever it is, it cuts both ways, that he can still make Sam feel as bad as he does. But the feeling washes through him, leaving a residue of shame and nausea. Sam doesn't deserve Dean's bullshit, he never did, and so Dean puts on his jacket and heads up the hill behind the batcave, along the route Sam takes for his run. He's pretty sure he knows where Sam is heading, and sure enough, he finds him at the top of the little hill, where a stand of trees crowd around a small meadow, overlooking the small stream which runs past their place. The meadow is covered now with small blue flowers, and it's probably beautiful, but Dean only has eyes for his brother.

Sam's hunched over the way he does when he's hurt, and Dean's gut clenches. He makes his way across the meadow and sits beside him. "Sorry," says Dean, "that was a shitty thing to say, I didn't mean it."

Sam turns to him, eyes reddened just a little, the way the get when he's hurt or really, really angry. "I could have gone back, you know." Dean boggles a little, he's not sure what they're talking about anymore.

Sam makes an impatient face. "To the dog, to Amelia. She _asked_ me, Dean, God knows why, but she did. I could have gone with her, gotten her back, my dog, my life, all of it. But I didn't, okay? I didn't, because you asked me to come on another quest with you, you asked me to stay, and I did, and I would have finished the Trials, but you stopped me, you asked me to stay, and I did, Dean, I did. I'm here. This is it, this is me, here I am. What more do you want, Dean? What else can I do?"

Sam's looking at him now, imploring, and it's not fucking fair, him deploying that expression.

Dean rubs a hand across his face. "Just tell me how long you're here for, Sam. That's all I ask."

It's Sam's turn to look confused now. Dean says, "I just need to know when you're going to leave, because I'm getting used to this, and I know it can't last, and it's killing me, Sam, it's killing me-" Dean's voice breaks.

Sam looks really confused now. "What are you talking about, Dean? Where would I go?"

"I don't know, Sam!" Dean's yelling now, he can't help it. "Wherever you're going to go! College! That nice normal life you wanted! You can have it now, what the fuck are you still doing here?"

Sam looks at him, and Dean thinks there's something like pity in his eyes, and it makes him want to punch something, maybe Sam, but he just clenches his fists and waits.

"Dean," he says, and his voice is surprisingly gentle, "What do you think we're doing here?"

Sam waves at the ridiculous carpet of blue flowers , the gentle slope of hill concealing the underground lair they live in. "What do think we've been doing this whole time? This is normal life, Dean. We're already living it."

Something inside Dean cracks a little at those words, but he can't tell if it's good or bad. "Sammy, I know we've had good times here, but this isn't what you wanted. This isn't the life you dreamed of, I know it isn't. You, you could have so much more-"

Dean's hands are flailing with the effort to describe this nebulous 'more' he could be having. Sam reaches out, impulsively, and grabs his hand. "What I have is actually pretty great, Dean."

"You were talking to Charlie, about college, I heard you. And, I know you wanted out, you wanted safe, you wanted happy." Dean looks down at their entwined fingers, and feels a rush of affection so strong it terrifies him. "I want you to be happy, Sammy," he says. "I want you to be happy, even if it's not with me. I want to have what you want, what you need, whatever that is, and I know I can't be that for you, it's not enough."

"These days, all the colleges have online courses," Sam says, "I can get a library science degree and I don't even have to leave the house. And we are out, or in, as much as we want to be. We take the hunts we want, and pass on the rest, and we have the knowledge know, we're not going in blind. We have backup, Dean, it's not just us anymore. And it's safe here - it's the most heavily-warded building in the world, Dean, and I'm reliably informed that the best hunter in the world sleeps down the hall from me. Doesn't get much safer than that, you know?"

Sam shrugs, spreading his hands out. "I never thought you'd settle down with me, Dean, I never thought I could have both, but here we are. Pretty sure this is it."

Dean looks at him, sitting in this stupid wildflower meadow with his stupid hair and his stupid, hopeful Sammy smile, and he can feel that thing in his chest cracking open, and he thinks it might kill him. He looks down at himself, at his battered, grease-smeared hands and his ratty jeans and his worn-out boots, and says, small, "I think you could do a lot better."

Sam laughs, and there's a bitter edge to it, the one Dean hates. "I'm, uh, not exactly prize material here, Dean," he says. "But I've made my choice, and this is what I want. What do _you_ want?"

Dean can feel something warm bubbling up through the crack, blood maybe. "Never a choice for me," he says, and Sam flinches a little.

"No," he says, "no choice for you, is it? You're always going to be looking after little brother."

Dean sighs. He's fucked it up again, already, Jesus.

He lies back in the the meadow, blue flowers cushioning his head, and admires the profile before him, the broad shoulders and the sharp cheekbones and the glossy hair. Sam is hunched forward again, but he still looks good - healthy, sleek, rested.

"You are to me," he says, and Sam turns to him.

"What?"

"You're the prize to me, Sam. Whenever anybody's asked me where I'd rather be, the answer is always 'with Sam'. Always."

Sam settles back into the grass beside him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean says.

They lie in companionable silence for a moment. Dean says, “What's with all the bluebells, anyway? It's like a frickin' Disney flick around here. I expect cartoon birds to come along any moment and start braiding them into your hair.”

Sam snorts. “They're not bluebells, Dean, they're prairie violets.”

Dean knows that look, Sam's about to start in on a botany lecture, and Dean kind of actually really wants to braid wildflowers in his hair, so instead he leans across the narrow gap between them and touches his lips to Sam's.

Sam doesn't punch him, which is a plus, he just kisses him back, warm and sweet. It's not brutal and frantic, the way it's always been between them, it's just Sam and Dean, making out in a field in Kansas, under the blue sky. He gets his hand in Sam's jeans, eventually, pulls at his cock until he gasps and moans.

Afterwards, Sam dozes a bit. Dean absolutely doesn't braid little blue flowers in his hair. 


End file.
